South Africa is battling foot-and-mouth disease using a 42-year-old law that Parliament’s agriculture committee chairperson says has serious operational gaps, while legislation intended to replace it has remained dormant for 24 years.
The Animal Health Act was signed into law in 2002 but has never come into force, leaving the country reliant on the Animal Diseases Act of 1984.
Portfolio Committee on Agriculture chairperson Nomasonto Evelyn Motaung confronted the Department of Agriculture over the delay on Tuesday, as the country battles foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks.
“As the country is battling with the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, the Animal Diseases Act of 1984 has been found to have significant operational gaps for effectively addressing animal disease outbreaks,” she said.
Motaung said the existing legislation was also out of step with modern approaches to managing diseases that can spread between animals and humans.
The law “is not aligned to emerging developments such as the One Health concept”, she said.
“The Animal Health Act of 2002 was passed and signed into law, but it was never promulgated. It was developed specifically to repeal the 1984 Animal Diseases Act,” Motaung said.
She also questioned why the 1984 legislation did not appear on the department’s list of laws under review, despite the problems it presented in managing animal disease outbreaks.
The department admitted that it had yet to decide whether to implement the 2002 Act or pursue another legislative route.
Director-general Mooketsa Ramasodi told MPs that consultations on the regulations required for the 2002 Act had been completed and assessed, but further internal discussions were still underway.
“There are discussions that the Minister assists with to see what would be the most likely programme to address the issue of the Animal Diseases Act vis-à-vis the Animal Health Act and how we proceed from that level. As soon as those internal discussions are done, we will then have to proceed to the next level,” he said.
Ramasodi provided no timeline for resolving the impasse.
The department’s head of legal services, Kanthi Nagiah, said veterinary experts had requested adjustments to the 2002 legislation after it was signed into law.
“We required regulations, and it needed some fine-tuning subsequent to the signing of the bill into law. That is what the experts, our vets, had requested,” she said.
Nagiah also acknowledged that the existing 1984 law needed attention, particularly its provisions dealing with compensation.
“I believe the Animal Diseases Act may need some fine-tuning, because it’s not an inadequate piece of legislation, but there are other provisions which need to be reconsidered and fine-tuned, like your compensation provisions,” she said.
The latest uncertainty follows a similar undertaking made to Parliament three years ago.
In August 2023, the department told MPs it was considering whether to strengthen the 1984 Act or replace it with the 2002 legislation. It aimed to complete the process before the end of that year. The legislation remains unresolved.
The department is also struggling to advance proposed animal welfare legislation.
EFF MP Laetitia Arries reminded officials that the department had previously acknowledged lacking the expertise needed to draft an Animal Welfare Bill. She asked how far the process had progressed.
Deputy director-general Dipepeneneng Serage said the University of Pretoria had assisted with the technical aspects of developing the legislation.
“The animal welfare bill is tricky. Hence, we needed expertise in the welfare environment, not necessarily on the legislation. We have a draft at the moment to work with, a working draft,” he said.
Serage said the proposed bill would replace two existing laws, one of which falls under the Department of Justice. The department is actually planning to bring the bill to Parliament in 2027.
The Animal Health Act was assented to by then-president Thabo Mbeki on 24 July 2002. Despite being signed into law, it has never been brought into force.